


Re-Writing Reality

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, arthur getting recruited, arthur shoots eames, mal is manipulative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 14:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6379288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Arthur thinks he shoots Eames it's an accident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Re-Writing Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2010.

**Paris**

“It's always Paris,” Arthur muttered under his breath. He checked his phone again and re-read the message from Mal although he had it memorised.

> Outside the Louvre. 11am. There is someone I want you to meet.

It was Paris where he'd first been introduced to Mal. He'd been on secondment with the CIA, investigating a Middle Eastern sleeper cell when his CO, a squat man with a penetrating gaze that ruffled everyone but Arthur, had mentioned how much quicker this would go if they could use the PASIV device.

Arthur had been aware of it – no one in intelligence could fail to know all about it. But he'd never tried it. He didn't even know anyone who had.

But the very idea was intriguing and once it had been suggested, he couldn't stop thinking about it. And when his CO had suggested Arthur try it out for himself, he had jumped at the chance.

Nothing that exceptional comes without a price, though.

The first test had gone fine. He'd learned what he needed to about creating the world of the dream, about projections and subjects and marks. About the subconscious and how it worked. It was fascinating and Arthur found he couldn't get enough. He didn't try much himself, just listened as the instructor, Dom Cobb, told him all the basics.

Arthur had reported back to his CO and they had started working out how to use the device in the field.

The plan went off without a hitch and Arthur was hooked.

Except the plan didn’t go off without a hitch, although Arthur was definitely hooked. Instead the information they had gathered was rendered useless thirty minutes later when a team of British Special Ops swooped in and arrested everybody, claiming that they were about to launch an attack on London.

They weren't, Arthur was certain of it. But just exactly what the British angle was Arthur hadn't known. (He did now. And it was even shadier than he'd suspected at the time. But nearly everyone involved was dead now so it seemed churlish to hold a grudge these many years later.)

That's when Arthur had learned more about projections. And forgeries.

He'd gone back to Cobb, asking questions and generally making a nuisance of himself. He only persisted because Cobb had introduced him to his wife, Mal, a beautiful French woman who had seemed genuinely thrilled at his refusal to take “we're not working with the army any more” as a reason to leave their doorstep.

Two hours later they'd let him in. Mal was the real expert on forgeries and making things appear as they weren't, so she took him inside a dream and tested Arthur on his own forgery skills (passable in a pinch but he didn't have, didn’t _care_ to have, the kind of imagination that would make it easy for him to seamlessly wear another person) and then on his ability to spot a forgery.

That night he was jumpier than usual. All the tricks to realising you were in a dream were playing through his mind. All the ways of spotting a forgery, of slipping in and out with due care and attention, they were exhilarating and he found sleep coming harder and harder.

Which is why when he heard the window creak open he raised his gun and shot the intruder in the leg before he was even conscious of what he was doing.

“Jesus Christ!”

Arthur flicked on the lamp and kept his gun trained on the intruder.

“Eames?” he said, surprised.

“Yes, bloody hell, yes.” Eames was pressing his hand down on his thigh. “Do you always shoot first?”

“Yes,” Arthur said, tone indicating that he thought it was a stupid question.

“Well, are you going to help?”

Arthur looked at him. “You're Special Forces.” Eames nodded with gritted teeth, although it hadn't been a question. “You blew our mission.”

“I didn’t blow anything. You Americans, always thinking that you know better than anyone else.”

“I know not to break into hotel rooms in the middle of the night. What were you after, anyway?”

“Would you believe me if I said your body?”

Arthur just stared at him.

“Fine. I saw you with the Cobb's. I wanted to know what had got them so interested.”

Arthur frowned. “They're consultants. I was using them for Intel.”

Eames smiled then, a wide smile that made the edges of his eyes crinkle. Not that Arthur noticed. “You were using them. Of course you were.” He held up a bloody hand. “So, a little help?”

Arthur, not at all feeling guilty he told himself, left Eames on the floor while he dug around in his suitcase for the emergency first aid kit he always kept there.

“Of course,” Eames said when Arthur pulled it out. “Not very full of surprises, are you?”

Arthur ignored the jibe and pointedly pressed down, hard, on Eames gunshot wound. Eames cursed inventively and remained silent while Arthur did what he could.

“You should go to the hospital.”

Eames nodded. Even he wasn't fool enough to think that he didn't need proper medical care, efficient though Arthur had been. “I'll get some help at the base,” he replied.

Arthur nodded and then stood up, not sure what else he should be doing. He was suddenly very aware that he was dressed only in boxers.

“Well, you can leave now,” Arthur said after a moment.

Eames looked like he was going to protest before nodding slowly to himself and hauling himself up from the floor, wincing from the effort. “If you could call me a cab?”

Arthur gratefully did as he asked. It gave him something to do and meant that Eames would be leaving soon. For some reason the man made him feel uncomfortable and unsure of himself, not feelings he was used to.

They sat in silence waiting for the taxi to arrive. And when it did Arthur tried to think of something to say, but failed. And Eames left with a wave of an arm above his head.

***

“Your mind seems very far away, Arthur,” Mal said.

Arthur flinched slightly, but did a pretty good job of hiding it. He turned and was smiling at Mal before he realised that she was not alone. When she said she had someone for him to meet, he'd foolishly thought she meant someone he hadn't met before.

“Mal. Eames.”

“Oh, you two know each other?” Mal asked, batting her eyes innocently. Arthur certainly wasn't fooled, and by the calculating look Eames was giving her, neither was he.

“He shot me,” Eames said, with a pout.

Arthur gave the tiniest of smiles and turned to address Mal. “He deserved it.”

“I'm sure he did,” Mal replied. “Shall we get something to eat?”

Arthur knew there was no point in trying to talk himself out of it – Mal would get her own way, no matter anyone else's feelings.

Arthur and Eames followed Mal to a little café in a secluded area, Arthur with the uncanny feeling that he was being led to the scaffold.

He let Mal order for them all and practically inhaled the coffee when it came. Eames was smiling at him in a way that he was finding terribly disconcerting. Mal was smiling too, but her smile he trusted even less than Eames'.

“What is it you wanted to discuss?” Arthur asked.

“What do you dream about, Arthur?” Mal asked. She dipped her finger in the cream of her cappuccino and licked it off her finger. “Do you dream of worlds so impossible that they cannot be real?”

“This is about the dream technology? The army - “

“Bunch of idiots,” Eames began until Mal shushed him.

“In a way, yes. You must know that you are wasted where you are. That there is so much more that you could be doing.”

“You're talking about...” Arthur paused, not liking the way that Eames was smirking at him. He had heard all about what those with the knowledge of dream-sharing were up to, of course. The technology to steal information from people's dreams was a boon to criminals the world over. And it would seem, to his present company.

“You're not going to get all moral on us, are you, darling?”

Arthur's glare would have shredded a lesser man. As it was, Eames just tilted back his head and laughed raucously.

Arthur turned away, rather than use language in front of Mal that he might regret later. Then he frowned, something about the baker's opposite triggering a memory. He'd been there before, he was sure of it. Back when he lived in Washington.

“I'm dreaming, aren't I?” he asked.

“Yes, you are,” Mal smiled. “I wasn't sure whether you would figure it out on your own.”

“And Eames?” Arthur asked.

“Just a projection. The real Eames is already doing reconnaissance work for us in Milan.”

Even as she spoke the projection stared at him fondly, raised a hand to touch Arthur's cheek, and then dropped it, before disappearing.

“You have a lot of control over your subconscious,” Arthur said after a moment.

“I have had a lot of practice. And my husband and I have a lot to teach you. If you are willing?”

Arthur thought about it for a second. He knew himself extremely well. He knew that he wouldn’t be happy doing anything else, not now he was witness to all the possibilities of dream technology. And, god help him, part of him wanted to prove to Eames exactly what he could do.

“Okay,” he said. “I'm in.”


End file.
